Meet the CEO Of Konga

Sim Shagaya is a Nigerian entrepreneur and business mogul. He is the founder and former C.E.O of one of West Africa's largest electronic commerce website Konga.com and he is also the executive chairman of DealDey, a daily deal website. In 2014, he was named in Forbes' list of "10 Most Powerful Men In Africa".

Sim Shagaya was born in Nigeria where he served in the Nigerian Army after completing the Nigerian Military School. He completed most of his education in the U.S. He is a graduate of George Washington University and Dartmouth College, he also holds an M.B.A. certificate after graduating from Harvard Business School in the early 2000s.

Prior to the establishment of DealDey and Konga.com, Sim worked as a banker in South Africa under Rand Merchant Bank. He later moved to Nigeria where he became Google's head for Africa and went on to found a Lagos-based billboard advertising business called E-Motion in November 2005. He cites Hakeem Bello-Osagie as the "biggest impact" in his career.

Before Sim started DealDey and Konga.com, he created several websites like Alarena, Jobclan, Gbogbo and iNollyWood which were relatively unsuccessful. In March 2011, DealDey was launched after he convinced the board of the billboard company he owned to invest in DealDey. On 3 July 2012, he founded Konga.com with a capital from Swedish investment firm Kinnevik. According to Sim Shagaya, the primary aim of Konga.com is to “aggregate the youngest and fastest-growing market that was dispersed, under-served and that traditional retailers were simply failing to reach”.

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